Biblical Telepathy

And all the people who were in the city were called together to pursue them, and they pursued Joshua and were lured away from the city.  Joshua 8:16 NASB

Were called together – Something odd occurs in this verse; something we probably didn’t even notice.  It shows up in the qere/ketiv of the text, something you don’t even see in translation.  The text reads one way, but is written another.

וַיִּֽזָּֽעֲק֗וּ כָּל־הָעָם֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר בָּעַ֔י (כתיב בָּעַ֔יר) לִרְדֹּ֖ף אַֽחֲרֵיהֶ֑ם וַֽיִּרְדְּפוּ֙ אַֽחֲרֵ֣י יְהוֹשֻׁ֔עַ וַיִּנָּֽתְק֖וּ מִן־הָעִֽיר

כתיב בָּעַ֔יר – read as Ai but written as “city”  Why?  We need to look at verses 1, 9, and 12.

Verse 1 designated both Ai and the land, verse 9 is written as Ai but read as city, verse 12 says both and verse 16  clarifiesthat the entire area of Ai, that is, the city itself and the surrounding area, are involved, including Beth El (specified in prior verse).  The tradition alternates between these two concepts depending on the verse.

According to rabbinic commentary, it wasn’t just the few citizens of Ai who were marshalled to go out to attack Isreal.  It was the entire area—the whole city, the agricultural lands surrounding the city, the population outside the city.  That’s why the text reads “Ai.”  Ai is the provence, not just the city.  In fact, as we see at the end of this story, all the men of Ai are destroyed, so the call to come together had to reach everyone.  The question is: “How?”  “How is it possible that everyone was called together almost immediately?”

Here’s the Hebrew text: (the verb is highlighted)

אַֽחֲרֵ֣י יְהוֹשֻׁ֔עַ וַיִּנָּֽתְק֖וּ מִן־הָעִֽיר

זַעַק (zaʿaq) cry, cry out, call^[1]

But note that the verb is about crying out, not gathering.  Jewish commentators suggest that actually means shouting out among the people in order that they might gather together.  In other words, there are really two actions—the shouting and the gathering.  This interpretation affects the qere/ketiv.

The verse has a sense of immediacy.  There is little point in planning to pursue at another time.  So then, how were the residents able to communicate the immediate pursuit over the distance covered by the city and its surroundings?  Even in the city this seems a difficult task.  The city of Ai had a population of about 12,000.  If 40% were men of military age, then the call to war needed to be communicated to 3,600 almost immediately, as the text tells us that not a single man was left in the city when the pursuit began.  This seems rather difficult to believe.  Is it the narrator’s exaggeration?  Or was the city much smaller?  If the term Ai represents the city and the provence, then the communication task seems even less plausible.  Perhaps the citizens of Ai used telepathy.   Or are the translators and the commentators just obscuring the facts?

Topical Index: qere/ketiv, Ai, city, zaʿaq, gather, cry out, telepathy, Joshua 8:16

^[1] Wood, L. J. (1999). 570 זַעַק. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 248). Moody Press.